Civil War: The cuter angels of our nature

Here’s a sentence I didn’t expect to write today: Civil War: The Battle Game looks to be the cutest American Civil War game ever made. The forthcoming title appears to be a gratifyingly complex turn-based strategy game with an underused theme, but if you cast your eyes at that screenshot over yonder you’ll note that the art direction is (to put it mildly) a bit unusual. Still – starved as we are for hex-based wargames on mobile devices, we shouldn’t turn our noses up at a game just because it looks like a misguided Hello Kitty licensing pitch.

Besides the incongruous sprites, Civil War also features illegible in-game fonts that make it appear as though Burnside has crossed the Rappahannock in the company of Zalgo – but if you can look past the zany exterior it all seems quite sound. The devs have exposed the sensible ruleset that underpins the game, though we’ll need to see it in action to really appreciate it.

Developers The Bitstreamers posted an update on The Wargamer forums yesterday, giving a heads-up that the game (which was originally promised for April) would be submitted to Apple soon. Even if Civil War is a dud, hex wargamers won’t be left in the lurch for long: we have Panzer Corps and Battle of the Bulge to look forward to this summer.